Matrix Oil to commence oil production in November
Friday, July 6 2001 - 02:33 AM WIB
Australian listed oil and gas company Matrix Oil NL announced Friday that it was on schedule to start production of approximately 10,000 barrels of oil per day in November this year, from its Langsa offshore contract area in the North Sumatran Basin.
The Company told the Australian Stock Exchange it had passed the halfway mark in the conversion of a 33,000 tons dead weight vessel for the central point of its floating production, storage and offloading system (FPSO) at the Jurong shipyards in Singapore.
The construction of the processing equipment to be placed on the foredeck of the FPSO is also ahead of schedule.
The conversion of the former tanker MV Alpine (to be renamed the MV8 Langsa Venture) is being carried out by Modec/Itochu, one of the world's largest oil service contractors, as part of a US$47 million three-year contract to provide the FPSO and sub sea operating systems.
The FPSO is expected to move out of dry dock for testing in early September before being moved on station at the Langsa fields in the Malacca Straits between Indonesia and Malaysia in mid October.
Matrix also announced the closing of tenders for the drilling of three re-entry wells in the field, which have proven and probable reserves of 33 million barrels of oil.
The wells were originally drilled by Mobil in the early 1980s but production plans were shelved because of a downturn in oil prices at that time. Advances in field production technologies means that the oil in the two fields discovered can now be produced more efficiently and cheaply and with the added bonus of higher oil prices.
Matrix acquired a 90 percent interest in the field in January 2000 and upgraded the reserve from 12.8 million barrels of oil (mbo) to 33.5 mbo after higher quality 3D seismic data became available.
Matrix Managing Director, Brian Hockney, said that the start of production at Langsa should generate strong cash flows with gross annual revenue of US$70 million, if oil prices average US$20 per barrel.
"The Langsa production cashflows combined with the potential of up to two new wells being drilled before Christmas will provide a strong platform to lift the Company into the upper tier of Australia's oil
and gas producers," he said. (alex)